Gridlock Scott Brown

Rick Holmes

Saturday

May 24, 2014 at 12:10 PMMay 24, 2014 at 3:01 PM

Scott Brown was elected to the Senate on a promise to muck up the works, specifically when it came to health care. Two years out of office, he’s still keeping Washington from getting anything useful done.

At least that’s the implication in a most entertaining Gail Collins column today. It starts with a true bipartisan energy initiative, years in the making, Collins writes:

Nobody hates this bill. If this bill were an animal, it would have soft fur and cute perky ears. Senate staff members would save special treats for it. The Shaheen-Portman Energy Efficiency Bill would trot from office to office, purring happily and being stroked and tickled by the tourists.

Then it got squashed.

Some people blame the bill’s demise on Scott Brown, the former U.S. senator from Massachusetts who has now moved to New Hampshire to run against Shaheen. (Do you think the Brown campaign is actually being secretly recorded for a reality show? Think about it — a cute guy in a truck drives around the country, fixes up a home, runs against a woman for the Senate, and then moves on to a different state. You’d have all the political drama of “House of Cards” combined with the excitement of “House Hunters” and the sexual tension of “The Bachelor.”)

But about the energy bill. The theory is that Brown called the Republicans with whom he served in his previous incarnation as a senator and asked them not to give Shaheen a win. If that made the difference, it would have been the most significant thing Brown ever managed to achieve in his legislative career.

But I think it was actually just the way the Senate doesn’t work.

Scott Brown was elected to the Senate on a promise to muck up the works, specifically when it came to health care. Two years out of office, he’s still keeping Washington from getting anything useful done.

At least that’s the implication in a most entertaining Gail Collins column today. It starts with a true bipartisan energy initiative, years in the making, Collins writes:

Nobody hates this bill. If this bill were an animal, it would have soft fur and cute perky ears. Senate staff members would save special treats for it. The Shaheen-Portman Energy Efficiency Bill would trot from office to office, purring happily and being stroked and tickled by the tourists.

Then it got squashed.

Some people blame the bill’s demise on Scott Brown, the former U.S. senator from Massachusetts who has now moved to New Hampshire to run against Shaheen. (Do you think the Brown campaign is actually being secretly recorded for a reality show? Think about it — a cute guy in a truck drives around the country, fixes up a home, runs against a woman for the Senate, and then moves on to a different state. You’d have all the political drama of “House of Cards” combined with the excitement of “House Hunters” and the sexual tension of “The Bachelor.”)

But about the energy bill. The theory is that Brown called the Republicans with whom he served in his previous incarnation as a senator and asked them not to give Shaheen a win. If that made the difference, it would have been the most significant thing Brown ever managed to achieve in his legislative career.

But I think it was actually just the way the Senate doesn’t work.

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